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account of his long, lonely downstream flight except that he made no mention at all of Sal's treasure or
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of his private goal.
None of his hearers seemed curious as to why the village had been attacked perhaps because that was
the normal fate of vil-lages and they all had some acquaintance with Lord Kalakh.
The Harbor Lord and his people did not impress Jeremy as es-pecially villainous, and he mulled over the
advisability of now Telling All, as regards Sal and her treasure. Arnobius did seem to be on good terms
with Professor Alexander.
Still, after a brief hesitation, the boy decided to retain his se-crets for the time being. He had no
particular reason to distrust these people but no reason to trust them, either, once momen-tous matters
came to be at stake. It did not seem utterly impos-sible that they'd start carving his head open, once they
learned what treasure was inside it. Under the circumstances, the decisionwas easy to make: he would
say nothing to anyone as yet about Sal or the special mission he'd undertaken for her certainly nothing
about the weird result. That would have to wait until he'd managed to locate one of the people Sal had
named.
It seemed that Lord Victor and all the rest were now inclined to trust Jeremy to the extent that they
thought of him at all. The Harbor Lord tossed him a gold coin by way of reward for helping his son out of
a tight spot.
And the girl was now behaving as if she and Jeremy were prac-tically strangers. He felt
half-disappointed and half-relieved. Had they wanted to carry on the affair, it would have been
impossible now to find a way to be alone together.
Five or six skilled crewmen in green and blue had boarded the catamaran and taken over the job of
handling her. The wind being generally favorable, the sail was put to work. TheArgosseemed to come
alive, and the miles began to fly by. The oar-powered escort boats had trouble keeping up. Jeremy,
relieved of any need to demonstrate his clumsiness as a sailor, had little to do but sit on the roof of the
deckhouse and observe.
When Jeremy had the chance, he watched Arnobius and lis-tened to his efforts to perform magic. The
man was not totally unskilled, but his present attempts were doomed to failure for the simple reason
that at the moment no gods were paying him any attention. None except the Intruder, who currently was
not interested in being of any help.
After another day's swift travel, the last and largest river brought the small flotilla to a saltwater bay,
several miles in extent and ringed by low hills. One morning there were gulls and the smell of the sea,
exotic to an inlander like Jeremy. For some reason, no doubt having to do with the local geography or
the prevailing winds, the Academy had been built not quite in sight of the ocean.
The whole scene closely matched certain old, vague memories that Jeremy had acquired from the
Intruder. On the farther side of the bay sprawled the walled city of Pangur Ban, rising from the quays at
bayside in tier upon tier of white and gray, crowned by a hilltop castle with its distant blue-green pennant.
The city was far bigger than any settlement Jeremy Redthorn could remember seeing. Its walls,
light-colored and formidable, rose bright in the sun, and in the ocean breeze the atmosphere above
Pangur Ban looked almost free of smoke. Near at hand the buildings of the Academy were set amid
green hills on a penin-sula.
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 This close to the sea, the river was tidal in its ebb and flow. Je-remy had never before seen a river that
changed directions, but this one did, every six hours or so and his new memory, when consulted, was
able to provide the explanation.
Crossing the harbor from the river's mouth with a skilled crew on board, the expedition's catamaran put
in smoothly to a well-made dock, a mile outside the city walls, where a few other vessels of various types
were moored. One or two were large seagoing ships, the first that Jeremy Redthorn had ever laid eyes
on.
And then theArgoswas at the dock, with a small horde of deckhands and dockworkers working to
make her fast.
THIRTEEN
An hour or so after disembarking from theArgos,Jeremy, his existence for the moment almost forgotten
by no-bility and commoners alike, was standing on a hill overlooking the low buildings of the Academy,
which stretched for a couple of hundred yards along the harbor side of a long, narrow, curv-ing
peninsula. He was alone, except for his permanent, silent companion. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]